"Piercing" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... there? He watched McCready as he entered, and suddenly the dog was on his feet, his back tense and bristling, his limbs rigid. He saw McCready's huge shadow on the canvas, and a moment later there came a strange piercing cry. In the wild terror of that cry he recognized her voice—and he leaped toward the tent. The leash stopped him, choking the snarl in his throat. He saw the shadows struggling now, and there came cry after cry. ...
— Kazan • James Oliver Curwood
... great passage of these great mountains, and indeed Glencoe, well sprinkled with snow, would be very like the ascent. But the top itself, so wild, and bleak, and lonely, is a thing by itself, and not to be likened to any other sight. The cold was piercing; the north wind high and boisterous; and when it came driving in our faces, bringing a sharp shower of little points of snow and piercing it into our very blood, it really was, what it is often said to be, "cutting"—with a very sharp ...
— The Letters of Charles Dickens - Vol. 1 (of 3), 1833-1856 • Charles Dickens
... we suffer less, or feel To-day's soul-piercing wounds do heal The wounds of months and years? Or that our eyes so long have been Familiar with the hunger keen Our babes endure, we gaze serene— Strangers to ...
— The Baron's Yule Feast: A Christmas Rhyme • Thomas Cooper
... himself a stiff and somewhat austere figure; but the newcomer was somewhat below middle height, with a kindly face, and the air rather of a sober citizen than of a military martinet. The remarkable feature of his face were his eyes, which were very large and blue, with a quick piercing glance that seemed to read the mind of anyone to whom he addressed himself. So striking were they that the king, when he went about the town in disguise, was always obliged to keep his eyes somewhat downcast; as, however ...
— With Frederick the Great - A Story of the Seven Years' War • G. A. Henty
... Guise was advancing along the streets, dressed in a doublet of white damask, a cloak of black cloth, and boots of buffalo-hide; he walked on foot, bareheaded, at the side of the queen-mother in a sedan-chair. He was tall, with fair clustering hair and piercing eyes; and his scar added to his martial air. The mob pressed upon his steps; flowers were thrown to him from the windows; some, adoring him as a saint, touched him with chaplets which they afterwards kissed; a young girl darted towards him, and, removing her mask, kissed him, saying, ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume IV. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... for many a weary mile they fare; Till thinner grew the floods, long, dark and dense, From nearness to earth's core; and now, a glare Of grateful light relieved their piercing sense; As when, above, the sun his genial streams Of warmth and light darts mingling with the waves, Whole fathoms down; while, amorous of his beams, Each scaly, monstrous thing leaps from its slimy caves. And now, Phraerion, ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXIII No. 2 August 1848 • Various
... glanced her eyes, with a piercing look, at the countenance of the boy, and then turned them uneasily from face to face, with conscious timidity. Cecilia had effected her object, and had resumed her seat in silent abstraction—Alice was listening to ...
— The Pilot • J. Fenimore Cooper
... His tone, the piercing glow of his eyes, warned Helen what was coming. She thought of Ninitta, and retreated ...
— The Pagans • Arlo Bates
... same moment romance appeared; the great songs: the greatest of them all, the Song of Roland; then was a ferment of the European mind, eager from its long repose, piercing into the undiscovered fields. That watching skepticism which flanks and follows the march of the Faith when the Faith is most vigorous had ...
— Europe and the Faith - "Sine auctoritate nulla vita" • Hilaire Belloc
... Rome was illumined by a new light. Wherever their footsteps strayed they left a memory of love. The forgotten churches of the Aventine—Santa Sabina with its wonderful columns of Parian marble, the charming garden of Santa Maria del Priorata, the campanile of Santa Maria in Cosmedin piercing the azure with its slender rose-coloured spire grew to know them well. The villas of the cardinals and the princes—the Villa Pamfili mirrored in its fountains and its lakes, all sweetness and grace, where every shady grove seems to harbour some noble idyll; the ...
— The Child of Pleasure • Gabriele D'Annunzio
... Mission was a white-haired, white-browed man of many years and few enough inches. His weather-stained face, creased like parchment, was lit by a pair of piercing eyes, which were full of fire and mental energy. But, for the moment, no one had eyes for anything but the stoic placidity of the expressionless features of the Indian. The man's forehead was bound with a blood-stained bandage of ...
— The Triumph of John Kars - A Story of the Yukon • Ridgwell Cullum
... sleepily, like one speaking at random. "Mind that you are back to say good-bye to Mr. Bingham; he goes by the early train, you know—but perhaps you will see him out walking," and appearing to wake up thoroughly, she raised herself in bed and gave her sister one piercing look. ...
— Beatrice • H. Rider Haggard
... to Your Theme Divine, All Heavenly great, and more than Masculine. Tho' neither Vernal Bloom, nor Summer's Rose Their op'ning Beauties could to Thee disclose. Tho' Nature's curious Characters, which we Exactly view, were all eras'd to Thee. Yet Heav'n stood Witness to Thy piercing sight, Below was Darkness, but Above was Light: Thy Soul was Brightness all; nor would it stay In nether Night, and such a want of Day. But wing'd aloft from sordid Earth retires To upper Glory, and its kindred-Fires: Like an unhooded Hawk, who, loose to Prey, With open ...
— Discourse on Criticism and of Poetry (1707) - From Poems On Several Occasions (1707) • Samuel Cobb
... straight on the high, well-developed forehead. A straight nose stopped short, as if cut off suddenly above the upper lip which was covered with a black mustache; over the whole chin was a closely-cropped beard. The dark, often ironical look was piercing, one felt that behind it there was a mind always actively at work observing people, interpreting words, analyzing gestures, uncovering the heart. This strong, round head was appropriate to his name, quick and short, with the bounding ...
— Maupassant Original Short Stories (180), Complete • Guy de Maupassant
... piercing an opening through the thickness of the coping wall, at a point where the drainage from the roof would collect, the opening being made with a decided pitch and furnished with a spout or device of some kind to insure the discharge of the water ...
— Eighth Annual Report • Various
... fine complexion, a well-made figure and a natural grace of movement—these were her personal attractions, so far as I could see. Her defects were, to my mind, equally noticeable. Under a heavy forehead, her piercing eyes looked out at persons and things with an expression which was not to my taste. Her large mouth—another defect, in my opinion—would have been recommended to mercy, in the estimation of many men, by her magnificent teeth; white, well-shaped, cruelly regular. Believers in physiognomy ...
— The Legacy of Cain • Wilkie Collins
... magnificent squares. It has a great number of churches and monasteries, and a university with 1000 students. This photograph represents the principal portion of the city and the river Moskva, on whose bank it is situated, with the Kremlin in the distance, piercing the ...
— Shepp's Photographs of the World • James W. Shepp
... The beams of the penthouse were too strong and too heavily weighted with earth to be removed, and the attempt would only have entailed useless slaughter. The penthouse was about forty feet in length, and the assailants were piercing three openings, each of some six feet in width, leaving two strong supporting pillars between them. Anxiously the garrison within listened to the sounds of work, which became louder and louder as the walls crumbled before the ...
— Saint George for England • G. A. Henty
... triumph would have been then secured; and if the voice of another Homer had been wanting to this king of so many kings, the voice of the nineteenth century, the great century, would have supplied it; and the cry of astonishment of a whole age, penetrating and piercing through futurity, would have echoed from generation to generation, ...
— History of the Expedition to Russia - Undertaken by the Emperor Napoleon in the Year 1812 • Count Philip de Segur
... A piercing shriek floated down into the kitchen, and another on the heels of that, and then another. Every drop of blood in Timothy's spare body rushed to his pale grave face. "Is she being whipped?" ...
— Timothy's Quest - A Story for Anybody, Young or Old, Who Cares to Read It • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... a piercing cry, and covered his face with his hands. He remained a long time in this attitude, his frame convulsed by the agonies of grief, while his mother watched, with streaming eyes, the effect of her communication. At length he removed his hands, and raised his head. His countenance ...
— The Three Brides, Love in a Cottage, and Other Tales • Francis A. Durivage
... believe to have been St. Joseph of Arimathea) showed me a fragment of the old vaulted roof which he had found in the earth; and on the whitish grey stone there was just a faint brush of gold. There seemed a piercing and swordlike pathos, an unexpected fragrance of all forgotten or desecrated things, in the bare survival of that poor little pigment upon the imperishable rock. To the strong shapes of the Roman and the Gothic I had grown accustomed; but that ...
— Alarms and Discursions • G. K. Chesterton
... a bold critic will say that this is a mark of Emerson's poems. They are too naked, unrelated, and cosmic; too little clad with the vesture of human associations. Light and shade do not alternate in winning and rich relief, and as Carlyle found it, the radiance is 'thin piercing,' leaving none of the sweet and dim recesses so dear to the lover of nature. We may, however, well be content to leave a man of Emerson's calibre to choose his own exercises. It is best to suppose that he knew what he was about when he wandered ...
— Critical Miscellanies, Vol. 1, Essay 5, Emerson • John Morley
... midnight church, that dim and mystic place, While shadows cast from many thoughts, o'er-swept the old man's face: He spoke at last, and low and deep, yet piercing was the tone, To one that o'er him long had ...
— Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 475 - Vol. XVII, No. 475. Saturday, February 5, 1831 • Various
... the coroner's physician came next. The post-mortem examination showed that the bullet had entered the chest in the fourth left intercostal space and had taken an oblique course downward and backward, piercing both the heart and lungs. The left lung was collapsed, and the exit point of the ball had been found in the muscles of the back to the left of the spinal column. It was improbable that such a wound had been ...
— The Circular Staircase • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... it down with a fierce lash on the quivering flesh of his son. He richly deserved the punishment, but God would not have struck him that way. There was the poison of hate in the blow. He again raised his arm; but as it descended, the piercing shriek that broke from the youth startled even the possessing demon, and the violence of the blow was broken. But the lash of the whip found his face, and marked it for a time worse than the small-pox. ...
— Weighed and Wanting • George MacDonald
... hath a piercing attenuating quality, as appeareth by the common practice of the Physitians in the Indies, experienced daily in the effects of it, who doe give it to their Patients, to cut, and attenuate the grosse humours, which doe cause shortnesse of breath, and stopping of urine; and so it may be used ...
— Chocolate: or, An Indian Drinke • Antonio Colmenero de Ledesma
... lines about them, telling that the years had been lengthened by sorrow, and the delicately-curved nostril, which seemed made to quiver with the proud consciousness of power and beauty, must have quivered to the heart-piercing griefs which had given that worn look to the corners of the mouth. Her wide open black eyes had a strangely fixed, sightless gaze, as she paused at the turning, and stood ...
— Scenes of Clerical Life • George Eliot
... was a large one, but it carried only a single traveller. He was a lean, sharp-faced man, clean shaven, with very piercing hard grey eyes. He blew three blasts on the horn of his motor. Then Mr. Doyle came out of the door. He blinked irritably at the stranger. The strong sunlight affected his eyes, and the rude way in which he had ...
— General John Regan - 1913 • George A. Birmingham
... jumped. And so did everybody else. But before the party had time to scatter, Major Monkey peeped from behind a neighboring tree and uttered a piercing whistle. ...
— The Tale of Major Monkey • Arthur Scott Bailey
... crowded writing-table, on which stood a beautiful crucifix in yellow ivory. Papers and tin boxes were piled in one corner. But there was no carpet, and only one armchair, over-worn and shabby. There were flowers in vases and bowls, and, in a large cage, canaries uttered their piercing songs. ...
— Sister Teresa • George Moore
... sword piercing the heart to receive this truth, but it is a truth and must be believed. There are hundreds of thousands in the past who were born and lived and died and were damned for the glory of God. There are hundreds of thousands ...
— Kate Carnegie and Those Ministers • Ian Maclaren
... wrist, but the other's muscles were as though made of steel. They both fought in despairing silence, the one to carry out his frustrated purposes to kill, the other to save his life. Again and again Mainwaring felt that the knife had been thrust against him, piercing once his arm, once his shoulder, and again his neck. He felt the warm blood streaming down his arm and body and looked about him in despair. The pistol lay near upon the deck of the cabin. Still holding the other by the wrist as he could, Mainwaring snatched up the empty ...
— Howard Pyle's Book of Pirates • Howard Pyle
... mass of ruptured flesh; it had suffered horribly. You could feel that the arms no longer held to their sockets; and the clavicles were piercing the skin of the shoulders. The ribs formed black bands on the greenish chest; the left side, ripped open, was gaping amidst dark red shreds. All the torso was in a state of putrefaction. The extended legs, although firmer, were daubed with dirty patches. ...
— Therese Raquin • Emile Zola
... the smoke became blacker and blacker, a heart-rending, almost maddening sound of shrieking and crying rang out from that devilish wreck, so loud and piercing that it drowned the clatter of stones, the crackling of the fast-kindling coals, and the crushing noise of the metals. At the cry for aid of the doomed victims, all who had escaped and hidden behind the bulwark came forth, creeping or running, shrieking and gesticulating, ...
— Dr. Dumany's Wife • Mr Jkai
... watching the scene I heard a thrilling, ear-piercing shriek—a dreadful cry! A young man, who was helping to carry a corpse, let go his hold and fell down on the pavement. I went over to him. He was writhing and moaning. He had observed something familiar about the ...
— Caesar's Column • Ignatius Donnelly
... close to the door, said, 'Hush! hush!' The same lady, now much alarmed, knocked violently at the door; there was no answer. She knocked again more violently, with no further success. Lady Ardagh, now uttering a piercing shriek, sank in a swoon upon the floor. Three or four servants, alarmed by the noise, now hurried upstairs, and Lady Ardagh was carried apparently lifeless to her own chamber. They then, after having knocked long and loudly in vain, applied themselves to ...
— The Purcell Papers - Volume I. (of III.) • Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu
... mission entrusted to the French diplomat by Mr. Seward, was more than sufficient to evoke the subsequent attempt at mediation, because it revealed to the piercing eye of European statesmanship, how the Administration, and above all how its master spirit had little confidence in the cause; it revealed the want of earnestness in official quarters. I hate and denounce all attempts, even by ...
— Diary from November 12, 1862, to October 18, 1863 • Adam Gurowski
... understood by both. When they were separated by quite a distance, and one wished to draw the other to him, he had a way of placing two of his fingers against his tongue, and emitting a shrill screech which might well be taken for the scream of a locomotive whistle, so loud and piercing was its character. ...
— The Cave in the Mountain • Lieut. R. H. Jayne
... by Parry to ice, the surface of which is composed of numberless irregular vertical crystals, nearly close together, from five to ten inches long, about half an inch broad, and pointed at both ends. Supposed to be produced by heavy drops of rain piercing their way through the ice rather than by ...
— The Sailor's Word-Book • William Henry Smyth
... gardener, Mr. Fletcher, as the recoil of the bell-mouthed blunderbuss he had fired hurled him prone upon the gravel; the dreadful imprecations of Bill striving to clear his leg of the potting-box through whose side it had plunged; piercing screams of Mrs. Major from a ground-floor room; shrills of alarm from Mr. Marrapit; gurr-r-ing yelps from Abiram ...
— Once Aboard The Lugger • Arthur Stuart-Menteth Hutchinson
... the terrible warning, but attempted to push past with his companion; and in that instant the passengers crowding up from below heard the wild, piercing, terrified cry of the young girl ring out on the night air, and mingled with it the report of a revolver—three shots in quick succession—and the voice of a man crying out in mortal agony: "My God! I am shot!" and the next instant a beautiful, fair-haired girl plunged from the deck down, ...
— Pretty Madcap Dorothy - How She Won a Lover • Laura Jean Libbey
... form a universal ingredient in curries, pillaus, &c. The seed capsules are gathered as they ripen, and when dried in the sun are fit for sale. They should be chosen full, plump, and difficult to be broken; of a bright yellow color, and piercing smell; with an acrid bitterish, though not very unpleasant taste, and particular care should be taken that they ...
— The Commercial Products of the Vegetable Kingdom • P. L. Simmonds
... "is tall, straight, slender, arms long, hands and feet of the smallest, hair just short of blackness, piercing, roving eyes, dark as night and full of fire, sight quick, and temperament alive with energy, ...
— The Golden Dog - Le Chien d'Or • William Kirby
... what, he opened the narrow gate, and the howling, clambering throng broke helter-skelter for the troughs, cracking and crunching the thigh-bones, tearing at the flesh, and growling at one another till the air rang with the ear-piercing din. ...
— Red Axe • Samuel Rutherford Crockett
... that Alf preferred Jenny; she saw that Jenny went out with him. And because she always wanted to do what Jenny did, and always wanted what Jenny had got, Em wanted to be taken out by Alf. Jenny, with the cruel unerringness of an exasperated woman, was piercing to Emmy's heart with fierce lambent flashes of insight. And if Alf had taken Em once or twice, and Jenny once or twice, not wanting either one or the other, or not wanting one of them more than the other, Em would have been satisfied. It would have ...
— Nocturne • Frank Swinnerton
... fowls. The apes here are very large, and quite fierce. They will not run from you, but come around you, and grin and chatter at you. An officer shot one, and he died like a human being, throwing his hands over his wound and uttering piercing cries! This monkey was afterwards buried in the sand by his comrades, though the interment was not quite complete when the operators were interrupted. This is the reason why nobody ever sees a dead monkey, any more, as the Singhalese proverb says, than a white crow ...
— The Cruise of the Alabama and the Sumter • Raphael Semmes
... ceased. Again came a hot silence as Bakahenzie paused in front of MFunya MPopo. Then with a piercing yell, the witch-doctor spun on his toes. The drums broke into an hysterical rhythm. Bakahenzie leaped high in the air; whirled around and around screaming hoarsely; ...
— Witch-Doctors • Charles Beadle
... more than the rebuff, and I could feel my hair standing straight up almost piercing my straw hat. I started around toward the front of the house, expecting to try the next neighbor. When I neared the front steps, I was seized with a determination to either get into that house or make the old lady some trouble for her impudence. ...
— Twenty Years of Hus'ling • J. P. Johnston
... Christ tells us in the next verse. "Ye are clean through the word which I have spoken to you." As He says later, "Sanctify them through Thy truth; Thy word is truth." "The word of God is sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing even to the dividing of soul and spirit." What heart-searching words Christ had spoken to His disciples on love and humility, on being the least, and, like Himself, the servant of all, on denying self, and taking the cross, and losing the life. Through His word ...
— The Ministry of Intercession - A Plea for More Prayer • Andrew Murray
... looking man of forty, of a thin, hard countenance, repelling manners, and sharp voice, which, when excited, rose to a piercing and discordant note. There was no sign of mercy or moderation in his physiognomy. This man, who, after faithful subordinate services, had become the inferior and hardest working partner, happened to ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXII No. 1 January 1848 • Various
... all the pools entirely dry. The sun was intensely hot, and the poor men grew faint for want of water, while it heightened their sufferings, that they stood upon the brink of a river, or wandered along its banks with eager, piercing eyes, and an air of watchfulness peculiar to those who seek for that on which their lives depend. One while they explored a shallow, stony part of the bed, which was parched up and blackened by the fiery sun: their steps were slow and listless, and it was plainly to be seen how faint, weak, and weary ...
— Australia, its history and present condition • William Pridden
... delivered from the numerous evil spirits that had taken possession of her soul. In view of their numbers, Brother James felt it necessary to have recourse to heroic measures. He rained blows upon the penitent, who emitted piercing shrieks, and as this took place in the hotel where the "holy man" was living, the servants intervened to put an end to the sufferings of the "possessed" one. But Brother James, carried away by enthusiasm ...
— Modern Saints and Seers • Jean Finot
... taken from one of the infernal chambers of the Spanish Inquisition. It was a complex mechanism, which grasped the body and the head of the heretic or other victim, and by means of many ingeniously arranged screws and levers was capable of pressing, stretching, piercing, rending, crushing, all the most sensitive portions of the human body, one at a time or many at once. The famous Virgin, whose embrace drove a hundred knives into the body of the poor wretch she took in her arms, was an angel of mercy compared to this masterpiece ...
— Our Hundred Days in Europe • Oliver Wendell Holmes
... royalists began on all sides to gain ground. Major-General Chidley, who commanded the parliamentary army, (for Stamford kept at a distance,) failed not in his duty; and when he saw his men recoil, he himself advanced with a good stand of pikes, and piercing into the thickest of the enemy, was at last overpowered by numbers, and taken prisoner. His army, upon this disaster, gave ground apace; insomuch that the four parties of the royalists, growing nearer and nearer as they ascended, at length met together upon the plain at the top; where they embraced ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.I., Part E. - From Charles I. to Cromwell • David Hume
... minds. The man is transformed, is acting throughout the play. Voice, form, and countenance are changed; only the eyes remain, and they are volcanic with strange lustre,—mindful of the past, suspicious of the present, fixed still upon the future with piercing intent. The soul of the Cardinal, nearing its leave of the tenement that has served it so long, glares out of the windows, with supernatural regard, over the luxury, the intrigue, the danger, the politics, the empire it must soon behold no more. As the piece is ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 103, May, 1866 • Various
... soul, such as with all her experience of it, she had never known before. To interior anguish was added the intensity of bodily pain, yet in her sharpest pangs, even when the surgeon's knife gashed her flesh, piercing to the bone, no sound betrayed her agonies, save once, a gentle invocation of the name of Jesus: for this impulse of nature as she considered it, she reproached herself as for a want of patience, and begged pardon ...
— The Life of the Venerable Mother Mary of the Incarnation • "A Religious of the Ursuline Community"
... myself. Do you think one of my children might go with me? Write to me as soon as you can. God bless you! Excuse the short letter, for I am not able to say more. Thank God, my wife and children are all well.' There was no answer to this note, nor to a final still more piercing cry for help. After that, all was quiet at the pretty cottage at Northborough. The last struggle ...
— The Life of John Clare • Frederick Martin
... with bat-like wings flapped with a monstrous ungainliness between the outer posts of the verandah. From across the compound an owl called on a weird note of defiance. And in the dim waste of distance beyond she heard the piercing cry of a jackal. But close at hand, so far as the rays of the lamp penetrated, she ...
— The Lamp in the Desert • Ethel M. Dell
... be purchased the right of rendering them productive! Besides one ought not to give way to illusions: these countries, at times so delightful, do not enjoy a perpetual spring; they have their winter, and a rigorous one; a piercing cold is then spread through the atmosphere; deep snows cover the surface; the frozen rivers flow only for the fish; the trees are stripped of their leaves and hung with icicles; the verdure of the plains has disappeared; the hills and valleys offer but a uniform ...
— Narrative of a Voyage to the Northwest Coast of America in the years 1811, 1812, 1813, and 1814 or the First American Settlement on the Pacific • Gabriel Franchere
... mountain-heads afar. There were fields of grain, and blue waving feathers from chimneys of cottage and farm-house. In the distance showed a village, one street climbing a hill, and atop a church with a spire piercing the clear east. The stream widened, flowing thin over a pebbly bed. The sun was not yet down. It painted a glory in the west and set lanes and streets of gold over the hills and made the little river like Pactolus. Strickland approached ...
— Foes • Mary Johnston
... three golden apples too were in the room. Then, thinking it foolish to let the beautiful bird stay in that mean and ugly cage, he opened the door of it, took hold of it, and put it in the golden one. In the same moment the bird uttered a piercing cry. The soldiers awaked, rushed in, seized the king's son and put him in prison. The next morning he was brought before a judge, and, as he confessed everything, condemned to death. But the king said he would spare his life on one ...
— Household Stories by the Brothers Grimm • Jacob Grimm and Wilhelm Grimm
... long and successfully, we should represent Reason and Faith as twin-born beings,—the one, in form and features the image of manly beauty,—the other, of feminine grace and gentleness; but to each of whom, alas! was allotted a sad privation. While the bright eyes of Reason are full of piercing and restless intelligence, his ear is closed to sound; and while Faith has an ear of exquisite delicacy, on her sightless orbs, as she lifts them towards heaven, the sunbeam plays in vain. Hand in hand the brother and sister, in all mutual love, pursue their ...
— Reason and Faith; Their Claims and Conflicts • Henry Rogers
... away, And take, from the lips that denied her, This answerless prayer of to-day! Take Lord, from my mem'ry forever That pitiful sob of despair, And the patter and trip of the little bare feet, And the one piercing cry on the stair! ...
— Afterwhiles • James Whitcomb Riley
... Libertine Tamed, a comedy in five acts; acted in Lincoln's Inn Fields. It is dedicated to the Duchess of Hamilton and Brandon, whose "elegant taste and nice judgment in the most polite entertainments of the age," as well as her "piercing wit," are eulogised. Accident gave me a copy of Mr. Hamilton's book-plate, which consists of the crest and motto of the ducal race of Hamilton in a very curious framework,—the top being a row of music-books, whilst the sides and bottom are decorated ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 68, February 15, 1851 • Various
... glow with transport. Mr Thornhill's assurance had entirely forsaken him: he now saw the gulph of infamy and want before him, and trembled to take the plunge. He therefore fell on his knees before his uncle, and in a voice of piercing misery implored compassion. Sir William was going to spurn him away, but at my request he raised him, and after pausing a few moments, 'Thy vices, crimes, and ingratitude,' cried he, 'deserve no tenderness; yet thou shalt not be entirely forsaken, ...
— The Vicar of Wakefield • Oliver Goldsmith
... Tsarevich lie down and rest, then, casting her frog-skin, she turned into a maiden soul, went out upon her beautiful balcony, and cried with a piercing voice: "Nurseys—nurseys! assemble, set to work and make me soft white bread such as I myself used to ...
— The Book of Stories for the Storyteller • Fanny E. Coe
... others; but two of the others, who had persuaded him to remain on board, were already frozen to death; the third decided to make the attempt, but walked feebly and with uncertain steps, and about a mile from the vessel succumbed to the piercing cold, falling into that fatal sleep from which few ever waken, in this life at least. Coffin's companion, a strong, hardy sailor, reached the light-house alive, but swooned away, and could not be resuscitated; and Coffin barely escaped with his life. He was terribly ...
— Adrift in the Ice-Fields • Charles W. Hall
... this march a letter was sent by McClellan to Stanton which has become famous. The vindictive lunge, visibly aimed at the secretary, was really designed, piercing this lesser functionary, to reach the President. Even though written amid the strain and stress of the most critical and anxious moment of the terrible "Seven Days," the words were unpardonable. The letter is too long to be given in full, but ...
— Abraham Lincoln, Vol. II • John T. Morse
... some a winter of snow and hail and piercing winds; with others of black frosts and creeping fogs, with now and then a glimmer of ...
— Annals of a Quiet Neighbourhood • George MacDonald
... with rage at these words, for truth rendered them piercing to the heart. He would have immediately answered to the challenge, but Taric forbade it, and ordered that the Christian envoy should be conducted from the camp. ''Tis well,' replied Theodomir; 'God will give me the field which ...
— The Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, April 1844 - Volume 23, Number 4 • Various
... personal appearance he was remarkably handsome, being of tall and majestic stature, to which his finely turned limbs were in strict proportion. There was an intelligence in the piercing glance of his dark eye, and a smile of mixed gaiety and satire sat habitually upon his lip. To his other attractions he added a set of regular though somewhat large features, which were shaded by a profusion of black glossy curls, and the superb mustachios and pera[12] that clothed ...
— Gomez Arias - The Moors of the Alpujarras, A Spanish Historical Romance. • Joaquin Telesforo de Trueba y Cosio
... broad-chested leader came out into the light, and upon the boys facing round to him his features were pretty well fixed upon their brains as they noted his smooth, deeply-lined brown face, black curly hair streaked with grey, dark, piercing eyes and the pair of large gold earrings in his well-formed ears. "Aha!" he cried, showing his white teeth, "bonjour, mes amis. Good-a-morning, my young friends. I hope you sal have sleep vairy vell in my hotel. Come along vis me: ze brearkfas ...
— Cormorant Crag - A Tale of the Smuggling Days • George Manville Fenn
... Mycenae's king Had bidden valiant Hercules to bring Alive unto his court. And now so fair The creature stood before him, unaware A foe lurked near, that he at heart was fain To capture it without the piercing pain The wounding dart might give; and so aside He cast his princely peplus, purple-dyed, And softly crept from 'neath the viny roof. But lo! the stag with smite of startled hoof On yielding ground, and toss of antlers high, Flashing a look from out his frightened eye, With agile bound ...
— The New England Magazine Volume 1, No. 6, June, 1886, Bay State Monthly Volume 4, No. 6, June, 1886 • Various
... Ivan's eyes, piercing the hideous mask that hid an agony, softened. He went impulsively forward, clasping Joseph's frail body in his own, strong arms. "Joseph, I do not mock you. I helped you once. You know that. Trust me again, then. You are not ruined. ...
— The Genius • Margaret Horton Potter
... in the southern part of West Virginia was fast drawing to a close; the heat during the day had been almost intolerable under the rays of the piercing sun, and the night was coming on in sullen sultriness. No breath of cooling air stirred the leafy branches of the trees; the stillness was broken only by the chirping of the crickets, and the fire-flies twinkled for ...
— Daisy Brooks - A Perilous Love • Laura Jean Libbey
... but never had I sought them. Two certainly had never been breached before, but it gave me no pride nor special gratification. This woman I had thought and thought about for months, coveted and paid for the sole pleasure of piercing her hymen. I had now the delight of experience, of leaving my sperm where man had never left it before. This girl of sufficient age, growth and form, I had bored with difficulty and pain, to her and myself, ...
— My Secret Life, Volumes I. to III. - 1888 Edition • Anonymous
... the question of the future of our Educational Institutions in the same self-sufficient way, when it gradually dawned upon me that the "natural music," coming from the philosopher's bench had lost its original character and travelled to us in much more piercing and distinct tones than before. Suddenly I became aware that I was listening, that I was eavesdropping, and was passionately interested, with both ears keenly alive to every sound. I nudged my friend who was evidently somewhat tired, and I whispered: "Don't fall asleep! There is something ...
— On the Future of our Educational Institutions • Friedrich Nietzsche
... earth that it seemed, sometimes, as if the low-hanging clouds were only a foot or two above its head. In the winter time the wind swept wildly against it, the flying snow drifted in through the wide cracks and broken windows, and the men who worked there suffered from the piercing cold. But when summer came, and the cool breeze floated across through the open places at the head, and one could look down always on the green fields far below, and the blossoming gardens, and the gray-roofed ...
— Burnham Breaker • Homer Greene
... the fir-trees black torches. And here the shoulder of a hill invited us to race up to the ridge: some way on we came to crossroads, careless of our luck in hitting the right one: yonder hung a village church in the air, and church-steeple piercing ever so high; and out of the heart of the mist leaped a brook, and to hear it at one moment, and then to have the sharp freezing silence in one's ear, was piercingly weird. It all tossed the mind in my head like hay on a pitchfork. I forgot the existence ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... admirer of our author, has followed his footsteps in his 'Goblins;' his Regmella being an open imitation of Shakspeare's Miranda, and his spirits, though counterfeit, yet are copied from Ariel." But Sir William D'Avenant, "as he was a man of quick and piercing imagination, soon found that somewhat might be added to the design of Shakspeare, of which neither Fletcher nor Suckling had ever thought;" "and this excellent contrivance," he was pleased, says Dryden with looks of liveliest gratitude, "to ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 57, No. 352, February 1845 • Various
... received very gloomy and cruel ideas of their God, who is called so good, to believe that the most dreadful calamities and piercing afflictions are marks of his favour! Would an evil genius, a demon, be more ingenious in tormenting his enemies, than the God of goodness sometimes is, who so often exercises his ...
— Good Sense - 1772 • Paul Henri Thiry, Baron D'Holbach
... the Eye to the Object, and quite varies from all our Doctrine of Opticks, by forming several strange Phanomena in Sight, which we are utterly unacquainted with; nor could Vision, Rarification, or any of our School-mens fine Terms, stand me in any stead in this case; but here was such Additions of piercing Organs, Particles of Transparence, Emission, Transmission, Mediums, Contraction of Rays, and a Thousand Applications of things prepar'd for the wondrous Operation, that you may be sure are requisite ...
— The Consolidator • Daniel Defoe
... been trained for just such emergencies and, when their colonel blew the "turkey call" on the bone whistle which he carried, and those piercing sounds were heard above the din of battle, his ...
— Rodney, the Ranger - With Daniel Morgan on Trail and Battlefield • John V. Lane
... at our fire had blue eyes, hard and cold and piercing. His hair was sandy. His face was shaven to the chin, and from under the chin, covering the neck and extending to the ears, sprouted a sandy fringe of whiskers well-streaked with gray. Mother did not greet him, ...
— The Jacket (The Star-Rover) • Jack London
... too much excited, too much interested to say a word, for two eyes were peering at him through the mist. Then the mist lifted under the dealer's cloth, and the eyes gleamed with a startling brightness. They were light-grey eyes, clear and piercing, that transfixed him and read the very thoughts that he was thinking. Anastasia had vanished. It was Lord Blandamer that looked at him out of ...
— The Nebuly Coat • John Meade Falkner
... to court disaster. Vye shouted, his battle cry piercing the silence of the lake and wood. He sprang, aiming the spear point at the beast's protuberant belly, and then swerved to the side as the knife bit home, raking his weapon ...
— Star Hunter • Andre Alice Norton
... upland he could almost hear the great spheres throb as they swept through space! But the human world slept, and while it slept what work of darkness might not be doing? That scream, shrill and ear-piercing, that suddenly rent the night—thank God, it was only a rabbit's death-cry, but it left the sweat on his brow! After that he could, he would, wait for nothing and no man. Lanthorn or no lanthorn, he must ...
— The Castle Inn • Stanley John Weyman
... are three in number, and they are one of the wonders of the world; nor is there on the face of the earth their like for height and fashion and skilful ordinance; for they are builded of immense rocks, and they who built them proceeded by piercing one block of stone and setting therein upright rods of iron; after which they pierced a second block of stone and lowered it upon the first. Then they poured melted lead upon the joints and set the blocks in geometrical ...
— The Book Of The Thousand Nights And One Night, Volume IV • Anonymous
... cloud-piercing structure can be seen for many miles from the surrounding country and from the bay it looks like a giant sentinel in white watching the mighty city at its feet and proclaiming the ceaseless activity and progress ...
— Marvels of Modern Science • Paul Severing
... not finished writers, but great quarries of thought and imagery. Of the two, Emerson is much the finer spirit. He has not the radiant range of imagination or any of the rough power of Carlyle, but his placid, piercing insight irradiates the depth of truth further and clearer than do the strained glances of the latter. A higher mental altitude than Carlyle has mounted, by most strenuous effort, Emerson has ...
— International Weekly Miscellany, Vol. 1, No. 5, July 29, 1850 • Various
... him that she had discovered all about his escapade with a dark woman resembling the queen of spades, and when he tried to catch her in his arms and convince her that he was a perfectly innocent man, she sprang from her seat, uttering a piercing cry. ...
— Witness to the Deed • George Manville Fenn
... care much about any one else's ideas except the Boy's, which he respected as second only to those of MacPhairrson where the wild kindreds were concerned. Black Angus was a huge, big-handed, black-bearded, bull-voiced man, whose orders and imprecations made themselves heard above the most piercing crescendos of the saws. When his intolerant eyes fixed a man, what he had to say usually went, no matter what different views on the subject his hearer might secretly cling to. But he had a tender, somewhat sentimental ...
— The Backwoodsmen • Charles G. D. Roberts
... opinion upon the subject, I nevertheless hold the opinion that the proper study of a language is an intellectual discipline of the highest kind. If I except discussions on the comparative merits of Popery and Protestantism, English grammar was the most important discipline of my boyhood. The piercing through the involved and inverted sentences of 'Paradise Lost'; the linking of the verb to its often distant nominative, of the relative to its distant antecedent, of the agent to the object of the transitive verb, of the preposition to the noun or pronoun which it governed, ...
— Fragments of science, V. 1-2 • John Tyndall
... were subtle and piercing. There was a short pause. Each was waiting. Dicky changed the attack. "It is a pity we should be in danger of riot ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... stern-looking man, dressed all in black, still young, with a cold and impassive face, the extreme pallor of which was heightened by his close-cut, coal-black hair, and his small, piercing, ...
— The Thin Red Line; and Blue Blood • Arthur Griffiths
... rain of heaven." In climate, also, this part of Strathearn is singularly favoured, sheltered as it is from the biting east wind and fortified from the northern blasts by its mountain barriers. Its rainfall, also, is far from excessive; for many sky-piercing hill-tops tap the rain clouds from the Atlantic long before they ...
— Chronicles of Strathearn • Various
... wreaked its fury upon the Jews, against whom all sorts of odious charges were brought. They were placed in the same category as sorcerers and lepers, and among the crimes laid at their door were ritual murder and piercing of the host. The instigations of the clergy did not remain without effect upon a people lulled to sleep by its ignorance, but aroused to action by its faith. The kings and seigneurs on their side exploited the Jews, and ...
— Rashi • Maurice Liber
... bed, glancing contemptuously at his bare brown arms, which showed through the openings in his blue shirt sleeves. He was still smarting from the memory of the sudden selfconsciousness he had felt downstairs, and a pricking sensitiveness took possession of him, piercing like needles through the boorish indifference he had worn. All at once he realised that he was ashamed of himself—ashamed of his ignorance, his awkwardness, his brutality—and with the shame there ...
— The Deliverance; A Romance of the Virginia Tobacco Fields • Ellen Glasgow
... near disaster later. They had reached the second act most successfully, and the audience had laughed at every suggestion of a joke, and when the curtain was drawn, had joined in tumultuous applause, piercing cat-calls blending euphoniously with the clapping of hands, and the stamping of feet. And then Peggy, who knew the entire comedy from beginning to end, and could have taken any part at five minutes' notice, stumbled in her lines, and to her horror, ...
— Peggy Raymond's Vacation - or Friendly Terrace Transplanted • Harriet L. (Harriet Lummis) Smith
... any spot of ground absolutely barren if a man do not grow weary of digging, and turning it to the enlivening sun, and if he require no more from it than it is proper to bear. Amidst stone and rocks there is sometimes excellent pasture, and their cavities have veins which, being penetrated by the piercing rays of the sun, furnish plants with most savoury juices for the feeding of herds and flocks. Even sea-coasts that seem to be the most sterile and wild yield sometimes either delicious fruits or most wholesome medicines that are wanting in the most fertile countries. Besides, it ...
— The Worlds Greatest Books, Volume XIII. - Religion and Philosophy • Various
... old comrades rise around him there, Old foemen, side by side, With eyes like stars upon the brave night-air, And young as when they died, To hear your bells, O beautiful Princeton towers, Ring for the world's release. They see you, piercing like gray swords through flowers, And smile from ...
— The New Morning - Poems • Alfred Noyes
... the Stockaders yielded again to the pressure and broke into separate groups. Then were to be heard the groans of the wounded and dying; then for the first time the yell of the Doomsmen broke forth, ear-piercing in its exultancy. ...
— The Doomsman • Van Tassel Sutphen
... for piercing armor, however, there are no two opinions regarding the nature of the bursting charge. To pierce modern armor at all a shell must be made of forged steel, so thick that the capacity of the cavity ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 794, March 21, 1891 • Various
... although he appears to be dead. I will now finish him by putting a ball into his back; observe the shot." He advanced, and cocking the pistol, "click—click," stuck it carefully in the middle of George Washington's fat back. Miss Jemima gave a piercing shriek and flung herself on the Major to seize the pistol; but she might have spared herself; for George Washington suddenly bounded from the ground and, with one glance at the levelled weapon, rushed crashing through the shrubbery, followed ...
— "George Washington's" Last Duel - 1891 • Thomas Nelson Page
... or barrel in another box or barrel of larger size, filling the space between with clean sand, gravel, moss or charcoal, and piercing holes near the bottom of the outer barrel and near the top of the inner. The filter thus constructed is partly submerged in the ...
— Manual of Military Training - Second, Revised Edition • James A. Moss
... is, he is growing very old; and though a piercing radiance, as of stars, bursts occasionally from the central part of him, the outworks are getting decayed and dim; obstruction more and more accumulating, and the immeasurable Night drawing nigh. Well does Voltaire himself, at all moments, know this; ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XXI. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... Madame Vigogne was about to visit the Empress, and was descending the staircase to enter her carriage, she heard piercing cries in one of the schoolrooms, and, hastening to the spot, saw a young girl with her clothing on fire. With a presence of mind worthy of a mother, Madame Vigogne wrapped her pupil in the long train of her dress, and thus extinguished the ...
— The Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte • Bourrienne, Constant, and Stewarton
... and followed the cure's servant, who conducted me to her master in a room where the table was already laid. I found M. Safrac greatly changed in the three years since I had last seen him. His tall figure was bent He was excessively emaciated. Two piercing eyes glowed in his thin face. His nose, which seemed to have grown longer, descended over his shrunken lips. I fell ...
— Balthasar - And Other Works - 1909 • Anatole France
... the tassel-whistles and blew a piercing blast. Now he could see several local policemen running toward the platform, and in moments Abrams, surrounded by an armed and alert escort, was hustled into a waiting police car, which ...
— Man of Many Minds • E. Everett Evans
... out that the day of judgment was upon them, yet bearing upon their heads whatever they could readily lay hands on—bundles, baskets, babies, and even clucking fowls tied by the legs. Behind them went a troop of dogs, piercing the tumult with ...
— The Battle Ground • Ellen Glasgow
... patent trap which Colonel Coulson, of Newburgh, has just invented. Instead of teeth, the jaws of the new trap have pads of corrugated rubber, which grip as tightly and effectively as the old contrivance without breaking the bones or piercing the skin. I trust these traps will shortly supersede the old ones, so that a portion of the inevitable suffering of the furred denizens of our woods may be ...
— A Cotswold Village • J. Arthur Gibbs
... the two snakes glide away to the high sanctuary and seek the fierce Tritonian's citadel, [227-261]and take shelter under the goddess' feet beneath the circle of her shield. Then indeed a strange terror thrills in all our amazed breasts; and Laocoon, men say, hath fulfilled his crime's desert, in piercing the consecrated wood and hurling his guilty spear into its body. All cry out that the image must be drawn to its home and supplication made to her deity. . . . We sunder the walls, and lay open the inner city. All set to the work; they fix rolling ...
— The Aeneid of Virgil • Virgil
... they of the church, court, or camp—his gentle and unassuming manner to his inferiors. It was these things that made him so universally beloved. The coldest natures, if thrown in contact with him, unconsciously to themselves kindled into warmth; vice itself could not meet the glance of that piercing eye without shrinking, for the ...
— The Vale of Cedars • Grace Aguilar
... spirit was contagious. Miss Pritty almost forgot her anxieties, smiled in return, and walked towards the tree, in doing which she trod on something that moved in the grass. A piercing shriek was the result. It was immediately replied to by a wild yell at no ...
— Under the Waves - Diving in Deep Waters • R M Ballantyne
... Another yell, piercing and complex, startled the owls and starlings to a flutter of feathers in the belfry below. The maid flew from the Vicarage window and ran down the Vicarage stairs and into the Vicarage kitchen, and fainted as soon as she had explained to the man-servant ...
— Five Children and It • E. Nesbit
... country was a gentleman called Caley, who stopped at the edge of an enormous precipice, where he could see no way of descending. But in 1813 three gentlemen—named Wentworth, Lawson, and Blaxland—succeeded in crossing. After laboriously piercing through the dense timber which covers some of the ranges, they traversed a wild and desolate country, sometimes crawling along naked precipices, sometimes fighting their way through wild ravines, but at length emerging on the beautiful plains to the ...
— History of Australia and New Zealand - From 1606 to 1890 • Alexander Sutherland
... road began to ascend with a very slight incline, winding around in an intricate sort of way, sometimes crossing deep gullies, at other times piercing the hillside in long dark tunnels; but amidst all these windings ever ascending, so that every step took them higher and higher above the little valley where Brieg lay. The party saw also that every step brought them steadily nearer to the line of snow; and at length they ...
— The American Baron • James De Mille
... proceeded further north, we began to see flocks of swans roam through the air, mount out of sight, and proclaim {127} their passage by their piercing shrill cries. We for some days followed the course of a river, at the head of which we found, in a ...
— History of Louisisana • Le Page Du Pratz
... in a harsh voice, motioning me to a chair by the stand that held the candle. Then this strange creature seated herself in front of me, and looked steadily and sternly in my face for a full minute. The gaze of the piercing, deep-sunken eyes of the old hag, the evil lines that marked the lean, sharp features, gaining a still more sinister meaning from the wavering, flickering light thrown upon her face by the candle, gave me a feeling of anything but ...
— Blindfolded • Earle Ashley Walcott
... story of piercing sadness, and horror, and heroism, and superb endurance was finished, I felt a big lump in my throat, and every nerve of me was tingling with emotion; and as I passed from the presence of this noble ...
— Windjammers and Sea Tramps • Walter Runciman
... now manifested so generally as auguring harmony and happiness to our future course, I offer to our country sincere congratulations. With those, too, not yet rallied to the same point the disposition to do so is gaining strength; facts are piercing through the veil drawn over them, and our doubting brethren will at length see that the mass of their fellow-citizens with whom they can not yet resolve to act as to principles and measures, think as they think and desire what they desire; ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 3 (of 4) of Volume 1: Thomas Jefferson • Edited by James D. Richardson
... a piercing scream seemed to come from the sea out beyond the surf, some yards higher up the coast. "Help! help! ...
— Elsie's children • Martha Finley
... back of the crowd, two figures who had just arrived at the spot burst their way. With piercing cries a woman with a baby in her arms flung herself down on the ground on her knees, between Rupert and the flames, and clasping the legs of the men who held him, arrested their movement; while the man, with a huge club swinging round his head, planted ...
— The Cornet of Horse - A Tale of Marlborough's Wars • G. A. Henty
... his meaning at last, and, crossing the room, took that interesting child by the ear the next moment he and Uggug were out of the room, and the door shut behind them: but not before one piercing yell had rung through the room, and reached the ears ...
— Sylvie and Bruno • Lewis Carroll
... from the street, and, piercing it with a sharp 'ping,' the bell sounded for the raising of the curtain. June did not stir. A desperate struggle was going on within her. Should she put everything to the proof? Should she challenge directly that ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... that when I saw him before. He said he knew I had, but he wished to hear "whether the same words came out of the same mouth, or different words," so that he might know if I were a true man or not. Then, after pausing a while, he looked at me in his piercing ...
— Marie - An Episode in The Life of the late Allan Quatermain • H. Rider Haggard
... at last relieved by William of Orange, who from his sick-bed had arranged for the piercing of the dykes and letting in enough water to swim his ...
— A Wanderer in Holland • E. V. Lucas
... am," he said, smiling; he felt agonisingly ashamed, and he felt others were ashamed in his presence. "Fancy such a thing happening," he said, sitting down. "I was sitting here, and all of a sudden, do you know, I felt a terrible piercing pain in my side . . . unendurable, my nerves could not stand it, and . . . and it led to this silly performance. This is the age of nerves; there is ...
— The Duel and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... breath, he let forth a piercing scream that rose and fell like the wail of a fire siren. At the same time he jabbed fiercely with his right. The man collapsed, but at that instant a third man struck Johnny on the head and, all but unconscious, he reeled and fell ...
— Triple Spies • Roy J. Snell
... a midwinter day, cold and clear and piercing." Miss Salisbury shivered a bit, and drew the shawl put across the back of her stone seat, closer around her. "Mrs. Ferguson—that was the name of the principal—had given the girls a holiday to take them to a neighboring town; there was to be a concert, I remember, ...
— Five Little Peppers at School • Margaret Sidney
... Bush. He drank fearfully, and 'on his own', but was seldom incapable of performing an operation. Experienced Bushmen preferred him three-quarters drunk: when perfectly sober he was apt to be a bit shaky. He was tall, gaunt, had a pointed black moustache, bushy eyebrows, and piercing black eyes. His movements were eccentric. He lived where he happened to be—in a town hotel, in the best room of a homestead, in the skillion of a sly-grog shanty, in a shearer's, digger's, shepherd's, or boundary-rider's hut; in a surveyor's camp or a black-fellows' ...
— Joe Wilson and His Mates • Henry Lawson
... can say no more. I must tell your lordship, then, that, the State Inquisitors shut me up under the Leads; that after fifteen months and five days of imprisonment I succeeded in piercing the roof; that after many difficulties I reached the chancery by a window, and broke open the door; afterwards I got to St. Mark's Place, whence, taking a gondola which bore me to the mainland, ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... usually from nine to twelve o'clock at night, in the dismal, foul-smelling dissecting room, my only company being several partially dissected subjects, and numerous rats which kept up a lively racket coursing over and below the floor and within the walls of the room. Their piercing and vicious shrieks as they fought together, the thumping caused by their bodies coming into forcible contact with the floor and walls, and the rattling produced by their rush over loose bones, furnished a variety of sounds that would have been highly creditable to ...
— McGill and its Story, 1821-1921 • Cyrus Macmillan
... think of the hot red blood stilled in death, and the grass roots creeping downwards like tentacles into the chinks of the wood, and sending up great fat greasy blades that sweated in the sun. I hated the grass roots, and dreamed horribly of them piercing into my heart, and drawing the life-blood to feed the bloated sweaty leaves, but the graveyard had an awful fascination for me. Sometimes old men would wander inside the dyke and move slowly to a rude stone ...
— The McBrides - A Romance of Arran • John Sillars
... was a wild outcry outside. Loud cries, the shouts of men, the terrifying trumpeting of an elephant, resounded through the courtyard below and echoed weirdly from the walls of the buildings. A piercing shriek of agony rang high above the tumult of sound and chilled the blood of the listeners ...
— The Elephant God • Gordon Casserly |
